Merkel's pro-austerity party crushed in elections on Sunday

And yet another blow to the failing austerity program in Europe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party was defeated in its worst result since World War II in elections in Germany’s most populous state that saw the Social Democrats extend their influence across the country’s regions.

The Social Democrats, the main opposition party nationally, took 38.3 percent to win today’s vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, while Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union had 26.1 percent, ZDF television projections showed as of 7 p.m. The Greens took 12.1 percent, giving a majority to SPD Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft’s SPD-Greens coalition that ruled for two years in a minority government in the state capital Dusseldorf.